That's a great start to a scene. You're doing a very good job on texturing the scene. As you said, you need to work on the background, I do agree with that. Second, with the lighting, I advise you put in a little bit of color. That means for the nighttime you make the light slightly blue. For daytime, it depends on the feel you want. For a warmer feel you would go for a yellowish tint. These lights don't have to have strong colors of course, just give a tint of the color.

Nice grungy textures, especially the wall on the left with the graffiti. Only problem I can see, with such a great set of textures on the walls and the downpipe, the ground looks a little too clean and perfect, almost like a raked Japanese garden. I would suggest a filthier, greasier ground texture, maybe with a bit of litter like cigarette butts & newspaper pages. Maybe a puddle or two, although that opens a whole can of worms with reflections if rendering in Anim8or. Excellent job though, I love the photo-realism.

Tanzim

coolbut as you said, you need to work on the back ground, currently it looks like theres a big black wall therealso in the night scene the pipe casts a shadow which i see is quite odd as theres no visible light source, i recommend adding a moon (in the background) or a lamp post

awesome; the texturing is especially impressive. i'd agree that the ground needs messing up, and it could use some work on the lighting, but the buildings are amazing. maybe add a light fitting next to the doors on the left? if you did that, and put in a corresponding local light in scene mode to make a sort of light puddle around the doors, and leave the rest of the scene a bit darker, i think that'd help make it look dirty and seedy, if that's what you're aiming for. the icing on the cake would be to have some more models off in the distance, with a tiny local light on them, to create the impression that the alley goes on for longer, and mostly in the dark, but i guess that could end up being a lot of work...